home path for cygwin 1.7.9 is acting funny

home path for cygwin 1.7.9 is acting funny

[Matthew Smith]

I installed to "c:\personal\cygwin" on my windows xp machine.

If I open a command prompt and type "echo %HOME%", I get "C:\Documents
and Settings\Matt"

If I then start an ssh connection from DOS (not the Cygwin program), I
get an error at the beginning of the connection initiation that states
"Could not create directory 'C/.ssh'."

This means that I can never save the certificate of the server I
always ssh to so I always have to manually accept the connection.

Here's the really odd thing:  If I start cygwin in another window and
then come back to my regular dos screen and run the ssh connection
again, I don't get this error.  If I re-examine the %HOME% path in the
DOS window while cygwin is running, it still looks the same.

I have searched exhaustively on this topic and the one solution that
keeps coming up is to make sure your /etc/passwd file inside of cygwin
points to the home path.  Mine seems to because my entry ends with:
":/cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings/matt:/bin/bash"

Anyone know why starting cygwin in another window makes the problem go
away?  I did a diff between the output of the cygcheck command in a
DOS window before and after I open cygwin in another window and I get
the following:

< Current System Time: Tue Oct 25 07:58:47 2011
---
> Current System Time: Tue Oct 25 07:59:30 2011
23,24c23,25
< UID: 0(Matt Smith)  GID: 0(root)
< 0(root)             544(Administrators) 545(Users)
---
> UID: 1003(Matt Smith) GID: 513(None)
> 513(None)             0(root)               544(Administrators)
> 545(Users)
76c77
<   (default) = '\??\c:\personal\cygwin'
---
>   (default) = '\??\C:\personal\cygwin'
84c85
<   System: Key: 93d3f9586243fecd Path: c:\personal\cygwin
---
>   System: Key: 93d3f9586243fecd Path: C:\personal\cygwin

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Re: home path for cygwin 1.7.9 is acting funny

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

On 10/25/2011 11:13 AM, Matthew Smith wrote:
> I installed to "c:\personal\cygwin" on my windows xp machine.
>
> If I open a command prompt and type "echo %HOME%", I get "C:\Documents
> and Settings\Matt"
>
> If I then start an ssh connection from DOS (not the Cygwin program), I
> get an error at the beginning of the connection initiation that states
> "Could not create directory 'C/.ssh'."
>
> This means that I can never save the certificate of the server I
> always ssh to so I always have to manually accept the connection.
>
> Here's the really odd thing:  If I start cygwin in another window and
> then come back to my regular dos screen and run the ssh connection
> again, I don't get this error.  If I re-examine the %HOME% path in the
> DOS window while cygwin is running, it still looks the same.
>
> I have searched exhaustively on this topic and the one solution that
> keeps coming up is to make sure your /etc/passwd file inside of cygwin
> points to the home path.  Mine seems to because my entry ends with:
> ":/cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings/matt:/bin/bash"

Mount your path above as /home/matt, update your '/etc/passwd' file, and
try again.  Spaces in paths are likely causing you to trip and fall.

-- 
Larry

_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
 > Q: Are you sure?
 >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
 >>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

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